Nearly two years ago, I began frequenting the dark net, or onion sites. I had a statistical approach in mind for analyzing covid death rates, and had just been denied access (ignored, actually) to annual mortality data from the CDC; so, I tried to find leaked data sets on the dark net. How naive.

I quickly discovered that no such data sets existed on the dark net. Instead, I discovered several empty forums, websites that don't work, and the drug markets. At least 95% of all content is about drugs – the selling, buying, usage, manufacturing, legality, and philosophy of narcotics. I loved the idea of unmoderated interactions but grew tired of talking solely to @analnumbbum in every forum about the same topics (a jest, but not far from the truth).

I decided to try out the chat rooms.

I discovered that half of the chatrooms were overrun with pedophiles. These pedophiles knew they were in a safe place, yet it was still a shock seeing them so...open. Their confidence was borne from the certainty of pure anonymity and a lack of consequences. It was an even greater shock to find that every chat room I visited had kids in them, and these two groups were incessantly exchanging files with one another.

I hurled myself into the fray. The goal was simple: Insult pedos until they left the chat room. I openly mused over the potential high rates of suicide for pedophiles - that the only virtuous pedo is one that kills himself spectacularly. I made the casual observation that pedophiles always look like hairless hamsters or starved vultures (they really do though). I labeled them perpetual virgins and meek undesirables. The point was to create a perception of low social status of this group so that kids in these chatrooms would feel shame for engaging with these creeps. Speaking of the kids, I spared them not. I scolded them for being lazy incompetents but gave sincere council when asked to do so. There was a boy that was whining to the community about not having enough money and if he should post pics for cash. I branded him an undignified swine that would never live down that low moment of deliberately satisfying the urges of the hairless hamsters online, of choosing the easy way out. I told him to get a job, preserve his dignity, and stop whining to people online. Sure, one can be angry with me, but he logged out. In fact, I convinced dozens of pedos and kids to log out of those chatrooms. Who knew a bit of soul-hemorrhaging rhetoric could do so much good? Perhaps the tough love of the older generations is effective after all.

I am still considering a nonprofit organization that talks to these kids in these chatrooms and confronts the starved vultures, but there was an important question that needed to be addressed first.

Why were kids in those chatrooms to begin with?

There are games, movies, book clubs, and so forth on the dark net, but these attractions are minimal and have much better versions on the clear net. The dark net is boring. Kids don't have much to do on it. Even most adults don't have much to occupy themselves on it. The only logical explanation is that pedos were engaging kids on Facebook or other social media and instructing them in the process of accessing onion sites. Sure enough, I asked some kids and found that they had been coached into it, but most wouldn't answer me or quickly discovered that I was there to lecture and blocked me.

It makes sense though, doesn't it – that they would be coached into it? Even though accessing the dark net is straightforward, few people know how to. Furthermore, as I've argued, there is little to occupy the attention of kids on the dark net, and the few places on the clear net that offer explicit instructions on accessing onion sites are places that kids have no interest in. Clearly, there are pedophiles who are finding kids on clear net sites and coaching them into the process of accessing onion sites. Once the victim is on an onion site, the pedophile is unlikely to get caught due to the anonymity of TOR.

A pedophile isn't going to send files or money to kids on the clear net sites. A pedophile is not going to request files from a kid on the clear net sites. A pedophile certainly is not going to schedule a meeting with a kid on a clear net site. The problem that these perpetual virgins have to solve is to get kids onto the dark net. Parents are afraid that predators will contact their kids online, but don't know how that process works. The red flags in clear net sites (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc) is not asking for addresses or images. That comes after. The red flag is when an internet user talks a child through the process of accessing a website or downloading TOR.

It can be argued that some of those "kids" may have been federal agents, but the majority couldn't have been. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been such consistent traffic and sharing of files. Clearly there was a market for child pornography that was being satisfied. Otherwise, the starved vultures and hairless hamsters wouldn't have been in those chatrooms.

It can also be argued that since some countries have national firewalls, they have higher rates of dark net users. Some kids in the world have a legitimate reason and motive to be on the dark net because it is their only access to the world outside of the confines of their oppressive country. Regardless, they have no business being in those chatrooms. Ultimately, the risk of hairless hamsters coercing kids into dark net interactions is high enough that parents should at least ask them about their interactions online.

The FBI estimates that there are nearly half a million pedos online at any given time ^[1]. I am suspicious of this prediction, partly because it comes from the FBI, but mostly because there was no analytics or data presented with the prediction. Regardless, this is a threat that warrants more answers than our security state apparatus has provided. I want answers to such questions, and I think most people want the same thing.

Sex Offender Quandary: Should I Choose Urban or Rural?

Do Sex Offenders Choose to Move to Urban or Rural Areas After Committing a Crime [end of section]?

I collected data on registered sex offenders ^[2] in 92 counties of Georgia. I collected where these offenders were (which included both their residence and work, so some were undoubetly counted twice, unfortunately) and the population density ^[3] of each county. The question: are there proportionately different amounts of sex offenders in different population density areas?

Virtually all counties have urban, rural, and suburban areas despite how dense the population is; hence, this analysis does not technically measure urban vs rural, but sex offender rates as a function of population density of counties. This approach is still a meaningful start to understanding sex offender patterns.

My findings show that there is no clear relationship between the variables. In one regression model (a linear line fitted to data to establish a relationship, or slope, and how strong that relationship is), I measured the slope of the number of registered offenders vs the population density. Theoretically, a slope of 1 would mean that proportionate to the population density, the rates (of offenders) are same for all population densities. This was not the case due to high error rates (someday, I will break out the camera and white board and explain linear regression theory. It's easier and more intuitive than you may expect.). There is much more I should say on this matter, but I want to keep statistic and mathematic subtleties out of these articles as much as possible. Below are images of my findings.

Do Sex Offenders Choose to Move to Urban or Rural Areas After Committing a Crime?

There is something else that we can learn about sex crimes vs rural, suburban, and urban areas. Population of rural, suburban, and urban areas (2012-2016) are 14%, 31%, and 55%, respectively ^[4]. But rape and sexual assault occurred (2014) at rates of 10%, 35%, and 55% ^[5]. This means that there are proportionately less rates of these crimes occurring in rural areas and proportionately higher rates for suburban areas. Urban areas are proportionately represented.

If we could discover the relationship between where sex offenders are currently (counties) vs the population density of those counties, we should be able to determine where offenders prefer to reside after committing their crimes. Do they want to go to small towns for less chance of getting caught, or do they want to go to cities to blend in? This is an answer that we can determine from my approach at the beginning of this section, if I can establish a relationship between the variables.

The ARKA Journal

References

[1] FBI. "Child Predators: The Online Threat Continues to Grow". https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/child-predators

[2] NSOPW. "National Sex Offender Search". https://www.nsopw.gov/en/Search/Results

[3] ZipAtlas. "Population Density of Atlanta, GA by Zip". http://zipatlas.com/us/ga/atlanta/zip-code-comparison/population-density.htm

[4] PEW Research. "Demographic and economic trends in urban, suburban and rural communities". https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/

[5] NCJRS. "Urban and Rural Victimization". https://www.ncjrs.gov/ovc_archives/ncvrw/2017/images/en_artwork/Fact_Sheets/2017NCVRW_UrbanRural_508.pdf